Wednesday, 20 November 2013

HorseWorld's
bid to build 125 houses - and a very big visitor centre - on green
belt land at Whitchurch village was roundly rejected by BaNES
development Control Committee today.

The
ailing charity had claimed that it must have the revenue from selling
off its current visitor centre for housing if it was to survive.
It's Big Idea was to use the development cash to build a bigger
better visitor centre. With similar amenities as the old centre,
but a bigger shop and and a bigger cafe and (wait for it) a new
250-seater Indoor Arena, it could up the visitor numbers by a third,
and get them to stay longer, while paying more per admission, and
spending more in the shop and in the cafe. Problem solved.

The
BaNES councillors weren't persuaded. The business plan didn't
convince them. They didn't like being told that only 10% of the
houses could be 'affordable'. The traffic figures suggested much
more congestion in an already congested area. The schools didn't
have the capacity. An hourly bus diverted to pass the site (except
evenings and Sundays) wouldn't make anyone abandon their cars. And
the new visitor centre would be a blot on the landscape. All in
all, there were no 'very special circumstances' that might make it ok
to permanently build over the Green Belt.

The
scheme's not dead though. BaNES themselves are looking at
releasing local Green Belt for development to meet their housing
targets. A proposal's just been floated to release a chunk of
HorseWorld land and neighbouring fields for 200 homes. If that's
agreed in the Core Strategy, HorseWorld will be back. And if BaNES
nominate other space for new homes, the developers will be queueing.

Hoofnote: 1st Dec.

A
curious feature of HorseWorld's application to build 125 houses on
the greenbelt with a minimum of 'affordable' dwellings among them was
the announcement to the BaNES planning committee that Bristol had
withdrawn its objection.

Not
so. It's true that Bristol's LibDem leader Tim Kent had been
lobbied beforehand by HorseWorld chief Mark Owen, who told him that
without the planning permission the ailing charity would go belly up.
And it's true that Tim, in turn, had lobbied the other south
Bristol councilors asking for their support in getting the Bristol
objection withdrawn. And it's true that Bristol did put in a
surprise 11th hour 'comment' to BaNES about the
application.

But
it didn't withdraw the objection. The secretive attempt by
Tim (and any henchpersons who might have been equally worried that
they might be portrayed as 'cruel to horses') to overturn the case
made by their own officers didn't withdraw anything, even though the
BaNES officers tried to make it look that way.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Mayor
George is busy creating, not to mention advertising, a thousand 'Calmer Crescents' with the
roll-out of 20mph limits on the city's residential streets.

But
not in King Georges Road.

That
doesn't get the mayoral treatment, it gets an appropriately royal
going over from the West of England Partnership, egged on by the
motoring and business lobbies. The Madness of King Georges Road .

Today
it provides a path for around 500 vehicles a day – and it
rarely, if ever, sees a juggernaut. But as soon as the South
Bristol Link opens, everything changes – ten thousand 'car
equivalents' will pass these front doors each day.

Perhaps
a few will come from local businesses, rerouted from current journeys
down Hartcliffe Way or along Airport Road. But by far the majority
will be the traffic that already flows – or inches from standstill
to standstill - along Airport Road, heading for the A38 or for the
Cumberland Basin and the M5 at Avonmouth.

They'll
save a few seconds too – unless the road is a victim of its own
'success' and attracts enough new traffic to cancel out even that
small benefit for the driving public. As tends to happen in real
life.

A
little bit faster? A Whole Lot Worse

[The Planning Application for the South Bristol section of the Link is expected to be held on Wednesday27th November at City Hall (6pm). More on the 'NO to the South Bristol Link Road' pages]

About this Blog

This one's from the little known Bristolian outpost of Stockwood, first settled by city expats back in the fifties. Leafy, open, and close to the countryside.... until they grub up the Green Belt and open spaces to build an 'urban extension'.

Written by an adoptive Stockwoodsman, arrived from the wild north-east back in 2004, this blog sets out to look at Stockwood and Bristol issues, mostly from a green perspective